West Suffolk District Council has confirmed that their new Local Plan has been adopted, and will now be used to determine planning applications in the District between now and 2041.
The Plan makes provision for 13,005 new homes and 85 hectares of land for employment growth.
Readers may be aware that the government recently introduced a new methodology for calculating housing need for local authorities. These changes have meant that West Suffolk will immediately start a review of their Local Plan using the new, higher housing need figure.
The policies in the Plan remain similar to those in the previous document. One change of particular interest to our readers is the rural infill policy, SP21, which allows the infilling of a gap within a group of seven or more existing dwellings. In the previous Plan, this was a minimum of ten, and this reduction is welcomed, though a requirement for the settlement to have access to public transport links has been added, and this will present challenges in rural areas.
The Plan includes a policy allowing the conversion of redundant rural buildings to dwellings, but requires 12 months of marketing to demonstrate that employment, economic development, tourism, recreation and community uses have all been ruled out. This is more onerous than similar policies in neighbouring authorities, which usually only require the building to be of architectural merit or the conversion to constitute an improvement in the appearance of the building.
The remaining policies are reasonably standard, though there is a definite focus on green infrastructure and sustainability in this Plan.
If you are interested in property development in West Suffolk, we can help with everything from acquiring land, building consultancy, and selling your development.
Image by Thomas Underwood
